Archive for the ‘Tuberculosis’ Category

Last Monday, over 90 percent of all the flights at the nation’s airports were cancelled or delayed. There was a thick fog in the atmosphere. The visibility was poor. It was less than 500 metres and this posed danger for aircraft all over the region.

In a particular instance, a passenger aircraft that was to land in Nigeria’s airport ended up in Cotonou, Benin republic because of poor visibility, according to airport sources.

Haze in Nigeria (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

This reporter on his way to climate change engagements in Abuja was stuck at the airport.It was similar to an incident at Schipol Airport, Amsterdam on the way to India for a United Nations Climate Change conference sometime ago. Ironically, many climate change experts going for Climate conferences are being trapped the world over by erratic weather patterns. Incidences of meningitis have been on the increase in Nigeria for the past one-year as a result of excessive heat. This year has been unbearably hot in Nigeria and other countries in Sub Saharan Africa. In Nigeria the eleven frontline states in the north that have suffered from desert encroachment have been suffering from heat related ailments.

Early last year investigations revealed that over 200 people were killed by meningitis in Nigeria and Niger Republic in one week. There were outbreaks in 76 areas. There were 25,000 suspected cases and 1, 500 deaths in the first quarter of 2009. Although meningitis is a disease caused by an infection of the meanings, which is the thin lining that surrounds the brain and the spinal chord, experts have found a correlation between the weather and this disease. It is generally known that the disease attacks more people during the dry season because of dust, wind and cold nights. There were indications in the past one month that many people were treated for acute pneumonia in some hospitals as a result of the erratic and unpredictable weather which has also confused farmers about planting seasons raising fear about food production and security.

Apart from the reign of diseases as a result of harsh weather conditions in Northern Nigeria agriculture has been affected as a result of erratic weather patterns. The dryness has led to dry waterbeds and movement of people and their pasture to the southern regions thus causing tension and conflicts between the original inhabitants and the new comers. Experts at the United Nations and other global bodies have found over the years that the world’s climate has changed.

In one of his treatise on Climate Change in Nigeria and Niger, Professor Emmanuel Oladipo, a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Consultant and Nigeria/Niger Project, Niamey, confirmed that Climate change is a serious threat to efforts at poverty eradication, and sustainable development in Nigeria and Niger because the countries have large rural population directly depending on climate sensitive economic and development sectors (agriculture and fisheries).

Even in the southern states, medical experts hinted last week that cases of Tuberculosis have been on the increase.

Dr. Nath Ayo Macualay Medical Director, Macaulay Medical centre, Mushin, Lagos told The Guardian that apart from heat rashes that had been noticed amongst the populace within the period of intense heat, there has been an upsurge in Tuberculosis (TB) in the past one month.

Macaulay said that those who are at risk are those who were not immunized against TB. The Medical doctor said that when a tuberculosis patient spits on the ground, the TB virus can hang in the air for 42 days unlike other viruses such as gonorrhea that can die within one hour.

“If you breathe in the tuberculosis virus in the air through dust it very hazardous,” said Macaulay, adding that the “TB can be in the air because of a lot of dust”

Last Friday, the Federal government raised an alarm that tuberculosis is on the increase and that about one million Nigerians are afflicted by the disease.

Haze in Lagos (Photo: Femi Adebesin-Kuti)

Dr. Victor Fodeke, the Head/Designated National Authority (DNA) Special Climate Change Unit, Federal Ministry of Environment, Abuja told The Guardian in Abuja last week that the sudden change in weather at this time of the year is a very serious problem.

According to him, this is the beginning of the worst thing to expect adding that this is evidence that greenhouse gases have altered the weather patterns of the world and Nigeria in particular. Dr. Victor Nkom, climate change expert/consultant to the Federal Ministry of Environment warned in Abuja that the dusty and hazy weather would trigger certain ailments amongst the populace who were not ready for the unusual weather.

Nkom said the dust in the atmosphere would trigger droplet infection because the dust will become the medium of propagating the various viruses and bacteria that are airborne.

Fodeke regretted that policy makers all over the world have underestimated the problem of climate change. He noted that a document written by Professor Charles H. Greene, of Cornell University’s Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences entitled: “A Very Inconvenient Truth,” published in the peer-reviewed journal Oceanography this month concluded that the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 4th “assessment report underestimates the potential dangerous effects that man-made climate change will have on society.” Adding that “even if all man-made green house gas emission were stopped tomorrow and carbon-dioxide levels stabilized at today’s concentration, by the end of this century the global average temperature would increase by about 4.3 degrees Fahrenheit, or about 2.4 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels, which is significantly above the level which scientists and policymakers agree is a threshold for dangerous climate change.” In the document, Professor Green and other co authors D. James Baker of the William J. Clinton Foundation and Daniel H. Miller of the Roda Group, Berkeley, California, USA are of the opinion that “reducing greenhouse gas emissions alone is unlikely to mitigate the risks of dangerous climate change” adding that society should significantly expand research into geo-engineering solutions that remove and sequester greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere. He concluded by adding that geo-engineering solutions must be in addition to, not replace, dramatic emission reductions if society is to avoid the most dangerous impacts from climate change.”

Tunde Akingbade writes for the Guardian Newspapers in Nigeria. This report was culled from The Guardian (30-03-10)

In a recent ministerial conference held in China, convened by the World Health Organisation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and hosted by the Ministry of Health of the People’s Republic of China, top level representatives from countries with the highest burden of Multiple and Extensive Drug Resistant Tuberculosis gathered to discuss and evolve a strategic plan to combat this threat to global health security.

A definition of those terms are on the WHO website with a brief excerpt here “Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is defined as resistance to the two most powerful first-line anti-TB drugs (isoniazid and rifampicin). Extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) is defined as MDR-TB plus resistance to the most powerful second-line anti-TB drugs (any fluoroquinolone and any of the three injectable drugs: amikacin, capreomycin and kanamycin). MDR-TB and XDR-TB together are defined as M/XDR-TB…A high burden country is defined as one where there 4000 or more new cases of drug-resistant TB per year, or where 10% of new TB cases are drug resistant.WHO,2009

Of the 27 Countries with a high burden of the disease, 4 (DR Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria and South Africa) are in Africa. South Africa together with China, India and the Russian Federation account for 60% of the cases of MDR TB worldwide. The presence of this disease on African soil indicates that a united response by African countries is needed urgently. TB as is known spreads in areas with overcrowding, poor ventilation and other signs of a low socioeconomic status. The occurence of HIV/AIDS and TB co-infection is also a major reason why the disease has grown in the affected countries. Another major factor in its developing resistance to drugs is the poor healthcare systems and their inability to support effective treatment programmes. All these are factors that are faced by most African countries and a decisive repsonse is needed to forestall a crises.

A call for action was released by the STOP TB Partners who met recently in Rio de Janeiro Brazil. The Director General of the WHO, Dr Margaret Chan, also gave a moving speech. Another call was made by the co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Mr Bill Gates, “Every country should feel the urgency, whether it is suffering from TB or not. Every country is capable of innovation, whether it is has a high-tech economy or not. And every country can adapt its systems to use the best innovations of others.”

This call to use innovative technologies is to be taken seriously as part of our revived commitment to enhance our healthcare delivery systems in order to fortify them for an effective response to TB and other infectious diseases. This includes but is not limited to the strengthening of electronic medical records for managing care and treatment data; the use of mobile technologies in healthcare (mHealth) for treatment monitoring; the use of geoinformation technologies as healthcare decision support tools and in planning treatment and public enlightenment campaigns; and even exploring multi/hyperspectral detectors in providing rapid and sensitive screening of potential carriers of the disease. This is of course to be founded on sound public health and healthcare management practice and also backed up by clinical care and scientific research into better cures, vaccines and evidence-based treatment practice.

There is room for positive global collaboration on this and African countries have a definite role to play. An enduring role that must be played till the scourge is wiped out.